Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

398 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
I gave your correspondent Titus a puff in the last 'Bull,'
because the man deserves encouragement. Puffing any of ourselves
would be praise thrown away. Murray sent me word
that he wished me to review any friend of mine in any way I
liked in the ' Quarterly ' ; and as he understood I was a man of
classical, &c., knowledge, would feel much ohliged if I took up
that line regularly for the ' Quarterly.' This I believe I shall
do, as my name is rather bad in London, and wants to be
bolstered up with laming.
I have received two letters from Croker this week. In a
Ute-db-tite conversation which we had, I spoke quite freely of
what he wrote or was supposed to have written, and he answered
me as freely. I told him that I had purchased for L.
thirty odd shillings' worth of little books attributed to him a
couple of years ago, and told him their names, as well as I
could remember them. This appeared to annoy him consider-
ably, and he pointedly denied the imputation. I got a note
next day, directly asserting that he had in Ireland written
only the familiar epistles, 'The Sketch of Ireland, Past and
Present,' and the 'Intercepted Letter,' and nothing else. He
begged me to communicate this to L. I told him in reply that
I should of course do so, but feared the incredulity of the world
was such that my denying anything to L. would just confirm it.
I said at the same time that Mahon, of Dublin, had informed
me that he and Sir W. Smyth (a Baron of the Irish Exchequer,
a man of splendid abilities) had conducted a periodical called
the 'Anonymous' together. This produced another note, part
of which I shall copy for your edification in the last page of
this letter. His opinion of ' Maga ' is high ; but he is absurdly
sore about the abuse of the ' Quarterly ' and of Murray. " If
you knew him," said he, " you would not speak of him as you
do." I assured him / had nothing to do with abusing Murray,
but spoke openly about what I thought was the pitiful conduct
of this * Quarterly ' towards ' Maga.' He made no reply what-
ever, I asked him why L.'s ballads had not been reviewed,
according to promise to Sir W. S. He said that he never heard
of any such promise, but would speak to Murray about it. In
fact, he added, he did not know anybody who was ait fait
enough at Spanish literature to give a suitable review. That,